“And Nettie Cranning, Eva Hanberry, and Paul Hanberry wouldn’t get a nickel?”
“No.”
“Not even if they can prove that that page of the will giving them everything is absolutely genuine?”
“That isn’t the question, Mrs. Cool. By the second page of that will, they are given not a specific amount, but each is given an undivided one-third interest in the property passing by the residuary clause. It isn’t as though they were given, for example, ten thousand dollars apiece. They are given the residue of the estate. Unless the court can determine how much of the estate was specifically mentioned in other bequests on the first page, the court can’t determine the intention of the testator as to the amount of the residue. The testator might have given away half a million in the first page — or only one dollar.”
Bertha Cool pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “That’s the law?” she asked.
“That’s my opinion, or rather, it’s my interpretation of the law,” Doolittle said. “It’s an interesting point. There could be a very nice lawsuit over it.”
“Well,” Bertha told him, “something may come of this. If it does, I’ll see that you get the business.”
Doolittle’s smile was frosty. “So many of my clients tell me that,” he said, “that I have found it’s better to put it the other way, Mrs. Cool. My fee for consultation will be twenty-five dollars; then if, as you surmise, anything comes of it, that twenty-five dollars will be credited on whatever additional fee is charged.”
Bertha Cool sighed and opened her purse. “Everybody seems to collect money in this case except me.”
Chapter XVII
The 1600 block on Fairmead Avenue, the address the blind man had given Bertha, was sparsely settled, being well on the outskirts of current real-estate development.
Conditions of the dim-out made it necessary for the cab driver to grope his way, pausing frequently to consult a map which he took from his pocket.
“This should be close to it,” he said. “Somewhere on the other side of the street and a little past the middle of the block.”
“Let me out here,” Bertha said. “I can find it better on foot than we can by prowling around.”
“But it’s more convenient to look for it this way, ma’am.”
“And more expensive,” Bertha snapped. “Let me out.”
The cab driver slid the vehicle to a stop, jumped out, and held the door open for Bertha Cool.
“Watch your step now, ma’am.”
From her purse Bertha took a small flashlight which cast its beam through a deep purple lens. “I’m all right. Be sure to wait for me,” she said, switching on the flashlight. She walked down the block, peering at numbers, and found 1672 to be a typical bungalow, set well back from the road.
The walk which led to the bungalow was of cement with a little iron guide rail on the right-hand side, and the inside of this rail was worn to a polish from being rubbed with the blind man’s cane as he journeyed back and forth to his little house.
Bertha climbed the two wooden steps to the front porch and pressed the bell button. She heard the sharp clatter as the bell jangled on the inside of the house. The sound was unexpectedly loud.
It was then Bertha noticed, for the first time, that the door was blocked partially open by rubber wedges which held it in. such a position there was a crack eight or ten inches wide. It was, she realized, because this door was partially open that the bell in the interior of the house had sounded so loud.
Bertha stepped to the doorway, called, “Hello. Is anyone at home?” There was no answer.
Bertha kicked out one of the door stops, groped inside for a light switch, found it, and clicked the switch on.
Nothing happened. The room remained in absolute, utter darkness.
Bertha Cool turned the dim, purple light from her flashlight toward the ceiling of the room. It showed a chandelier hanging down from the ceiling with a cluster of sockets for light globes. But there wasn’t so much as a single light globe in the place.
Puzzled, Bertha swung the beam of her flashlight, and then suddenly the solution dawned upon her. A blind man had no need for electric lights.
Bertha stepped inside the house, sending the beam of her flashlight around the room. She called once, “This is Mrs. Cool. Isn’t anybody home?”
She sensed motion somewhere in the darkness. A huge, formless shadow appeared on the ceiling, slid silently across it and vanished. Bertha jumped back. Something fluttered close to her face; then, without sound, an object settled against her neck.
Bertha flung up her arm, kicked out viciously. In a rage that was born of terror, she screamed a lusty oath.
Abruptly, the thing left her. For a moment it was caught in the unreal light in her flashlight — a bat with outstretched wings, a bat which sent its shadow projected against the far wall, making the animal seem monstrously big, bizarre, and wicked.
“Pickle me for a herring!” Bertha exclaimed, and then struck viciously at the bat, which eluded her effortlessly and glided out into the darkness.
It was a full ten seconds before Bertha could get her pulse under control and start examining the front room of the house.
Satisfied that the room was empty, she turned back toward the porch, guided by the unreal faint illumination which sprayed out from her pocket flashlight.
It was then she noticed for the first time a jet-black streak running across the floor. At first glance she thought this was merely a stain on the carpet. Then, with another pounding of her heart, she realized that it was some sort of liquid — a little pool of the liquid, then a smear, a zigzag path, another pool, a smear, a zigzag path. It was just as the nature of this sinister track dawned upon her that Bertha Cool discovered the body.
It was sprawled face down over near a window on the far side of the room. Apparently, the man had been shot while standing near the door, and had crawled a few inches at a time, and with frequent stops trying to gather the strength which was oozing out of him even as he waited — until finally, a pause to gather strength just under the window had been long enough to let that last pool of red mark the end of the struggle with a grim period — a period which showed black as ink in the violet light thrown by Bertha Cool’s spotlight.
Abruptly, the possible significance of the open door and of the silent house dawned on Bertha Cool. She recognized the distinct possibility that a murderer was concealed in one of the other rooms, hoping to avoid detection, but ready to shoot his way out should he be discovered. The place was wrapped in Stygian darkness interspersed only by such eerie illumination as came from the flashlight Bertha Cool held in her hand. And this flashlight, designed to be used during a complete blackout, cast no well-defined beam which furnished a sharp illumination. Rather, it dissolved an indeterminate area of dense darkness into a half-darkness, showing objects with sufficient clarity to enable one to avoid stumbling over them. But there was no assurance that it penetrated the shadows in which a murderer might be lurking.
Bertha Cool started with grim competency toward the door. Her foot tangled in a thin wire, jerked some object sharply, and sent it clattering. Bertha’s flashlight swung down, showing a tripod with a small gauge shotgun lashed in position, the wire running to the trigger. Bertha’s march became a retreat, then a rout. The wooden porch of the building echoed to her fleeing steps, and the flashlight bobbed and weaved in her hand as she ran down the walk.
The cab driver had turned out his headlights, and Bertha knew only that the cab should be somewhere down the street. She kept looking back over her shoulder as she ran down the sidewalk.
Abruptly the parking lights of the taxicab snapped on. The cab driver, looking at her curiously, said, “All finished?”